Dr.
Jerold M. Starr, Executive Director,
Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting
Prepared for
Forum Barcelona 2004, May 20, 2004
The free expression
of public opinion is essential to democratic government. Such opinion
must be the autonomous creation of citizens acting as members of
a public rather than the representations of elites who presume to
speak on behalf of the public. Local matters can still be addressed
through public discussions within organizations or even town meetings.
On matters of larger social importance, however, the size and complexity
of modern society does not permit effective public opinion to form
through direct participation.
The emergence
of authentic public opinion on the big issues would be possible
if the mass media of communications served as a vehicle for rational
discussion featuring the full range of political and cultural perspectives.
However, this would never occur if such communications were controlled
by a narrow political elite or by commercial interests seeking to
maximize their audiences by excluding controversial issues or views
that dissented from the conventional wisdom.
It is public
service broadcasting that bears primary responsibility for providing
the media within which the public of public opinion can be activated.
As articulated by Toby Mendel for UNESCO, a "fundamental principle"
of "democratic public broadcasting" is that "the
airwaves belong to the people and must be used for their benefit."
Thus, as put by Australian media scholar Allan Brown, "Government
policy of promoting PSB…places greater emphasis on viewers and listeners
in their capacity as social beings, citizens and voters than as
consumers."
The mission
of public service broadcasting around the world has been characterized
by certain key principles: (1) universal geographic access; (2)
promoting national identity and indigenous culture; (3) serving
community interests; (4) independence from government and commercial
controls; (5) creative freedom; (6) offering a range of quality
programs for all interests and tastes; and (7) fairness, accuracy
and nonpartisanship in news and public affairs.
A truly democratic public broadcasting service would strive to instill
democratic values and promote empathy and respect for all groups.
There are many
ways that the State can promote PSB. For one, it can impose public
service obligations on private commercial broadcasters as compensation
for their profitable use of public spectrum. For another, it can
underwrite public service program production and distribution for
commercial broadcasters as well, as is done by the CRTC in Canada.
And it can support community broadcasters that serve local publics.
None of this,
however, would be sufficient to bear the burden of PSB's mission
to promote democracy in a mass society subject to the shocks of
global capitalism. For that, citizens need a fully developed public
broadcasting institution serving the public sphere. As put by media
scholar Patricia Aufderheide, this would be "a public project
executed though broadcasting…using mass communication as a tool
of public life.
Consistent
with its mission, PSB must offer programming that is supplementary
and complementary to that available on commercial channels. Commercial
broadcasters typically avoid programs that are expensive to produce
or that attract smaller or less commercially desirable audiences.
Commercial broadcasters also avoid controversy, as it tends to divide
the audience for the sponsors' products.
Finally, commercial
broadcasters are vulnerable to censorship. Censorship occurs because
the story may conflict with the interests of the parent company,
because the story may offend valued advertisers, because the story
may offend political officials in a position to regulate their enterprises,
or because it is feared that the story may be too complicated or
boring for the target audience.
Most recently
in the U.S., the Sinclair Broadcasting station group blacked out
ABC's Nightline for running a special program listing the names
of U.S. combat soldiers who have been killed in action in Iraq.
Disney has blocked distribution of Michael Moore's new documentary
exposing the connections between the Bush and bin Laden families
even though it was financed by its Miramax subsidiary. And Viacom
refused to run an ad paid for by an advocacy group during broadcast
of the Super Bowl because it was critical of the Bush Administration's
economic policies.
Allan Brown
and Martin Cave, thus, observe: "An unregulated, all-commercial
system of broadcasting would, therefore result in market failure.
Certain minority tastes and specific programming preferences of
viewers would not be catered to, whereas some other program types
would be overprovided." As such, "program diversity in
a market is far more enhanced by the addition of a noncommercial
channel than by the addition of another commercial station."
In sum, the "economic rationale for PSB takes the familiar
form of government intervention to address market failure."
H.J. Levin's
research found that program diversity is enhanced in a market by
the addition of a noncommercial channel far more than by the addition
of another commercial station. He also found that the existing commercial
stations suffer no apparent economic losses because of competition
from the establishment and operation of a public television station.
PSB CONDITIONS
Consideration
of any country's public service broadcasting (PSB) must be placed
in the context of its total social system and culture; its economy,
polity, and, especially, the size, structure and strength of its
commercial broadcasting sector.
As Polish media analyst Karol Jakubowicz has observed, PSB worthy
of its name has "certain prerequisites." These include:
"a mature and stable democracy; the existence of a civil society
and an independent public sphere; an accepted notion of the public
interest; trust in, and acceptance of public regulation of broadcasting
to serve the public interest; and the emergence of journalistic
professionalism based on a notion of public service."
In countries
with histories of political instability, like Italy until 1976 or
France until 1989, state-funded broadcasters were vulnerable to
political interference and too often served as mere mouthpieces
for the ruling party.
Marc Raboy
comments further that PSB is a "distant ideal" in much
of the "transitional" world (Africa, Asia, and South America)
as "neo-totalitarian or neo-colonial governments seek to retain
power at all cost." For example, throughout its history, ruling
elites in the Philippines have controlled the country's one television
network, Maharlika Broadcasting System. Even the 1992 plan for a
People's Television Network, Inc. (PTNI) confined its mission to
promoting "national unity and political stability." South
Africa has been liberated from Apartheid, but the African National
Congress dominates national politics and the economy is so weak
that the South African Broadcasting Corporation must rely on commercial
sources for 77 percent of its revenue.
There is no
PSB in Communist China where the Chinese Communist Party exercises
complete editorial control over China Central Television (CCTV).
Despite reforms in the post-Communist countries of eastern Europe,
Jakubowicz further observes, none of the conditions for PSB have
been met "and it will take a long time before they are."
In fascist
Germany, radio was used exclusively for state propaganda and foreign
radio broadcasts were forbidden. Today, in the German Democratic
Republic, however, license fees of about US$100 per capita fund
a two-station service that attracts a 39 percent share of the viewing
public. In Japan, the NHK has a budget of US$6 billion (three times
that of the U.S.) and draws a 17 percent share of the audience (six
times that of the U.S.).
PSB MODELS
Today, the
best models of PSB can be found in Europe and Japan. PSB was established
in the European nations in the 1920s and 1930s, even before commercial
broadcasting and within a system of communications that was regulated
in the public interest. PSBs in England, Germany, the Netherlands,
Sweden, Norway, France, Italy and Spain all attract audience shares
of between 33 percent and 49 percent with Denmark at 69 percent.
In France, Sweden and Germany commercial broadcasters must observe
rules regarding advertising content, placement, and limits.
In the early
twentieth century U.S., civic and public interest groups pioneered
the advent of radio broadcasting. By the end of the 1920s, however,
these stations were legislated to the margins of the spectrum by
the U.S. Congress at the behest of the commercial networks. The
first significant set aside for noncommercial frequencies did not
occur until 1954 and the legislation creating a Corporation for
Public Broadcasting was not enacted until 1967.
As a percentage
of GNP, in 1993, U.S. PSB received about one-third that of Australia
and Canada and one-sixth that of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless,
throughout its history, conservative Republican administrations
have attacked the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), even calling
for its elimination. In 1969, President Nixon vetoed the PBS authorization,
replaced the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Board, and
shifted funds from the national service to member stations as a
punishment for its allegedly liberal bias.
In 1981, President
Reagan rescinded the CPB authorization for two years, causing an
almost total abandonment of experimental and progressive programming.
In 1995, House leader Newt Gingrich announced his intention to kill
all federal funding for public broadcasting, causing PBS chief Ervin
Duggan to reject critical documentaries in favor of those that met
some conservative notion of "balance." More recently,
Congress and even PBS leaders have argued for reducing the number
of PBS stations to one per market and the Federal Communications
Commission has granted permission to PBS stations to use some of
their digital spectrum allocation for commercial purposes. These
days PBS has a rating of 1.7 and share of less than 3 percent.
PSB CHALLENGES
Unfortunately,
even strong PSBs face serious challenges in today's world. First,
cable, satellite and microwave distribution systems enable many
more television channels. In addition to regularly scheduled programs
there are pay-TV, video-on-demand (VOD), and DVD and VHS rentals
available to consumers. The transition to digital transmission also
will increase the number of TV channels and radio stations greatly.
Australian
media scholar Allan Brown has noted: "As the number of commercial
services increases, so does the service's potential to provide the
programming that was traditionally the reserve of public broadcasters."
In the U.S. whole cable networks are dedicated to traditional PBS
fare like nature, history, cooking, and home decorating.
All of these
developments have and will continue to fragment the audience for
PSB. For example, in the U.S. today, Nielsen rates about 2,200 programs
every week. Fewer than 25 of them attract more than 5 percent of
the adult population. In 2000, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
President Robert Rabinovitch announced the layoffs of 670 staff
and the closing of a dozen regional newsrooms. To Parliament, he
explained: "CBC Television's share of the early-evening news
audience is less than half of what it was a decade ago. During the
1990's it dropped from 28 percent to 13 percent."
Second, multinational
corporations have been waging a successful assault on national governments,
especially the welfare state. The increasing dominance of the market
concept of society has led to the total commodification of land
and labor and the reinvention of human nature as a purely rational,
calculating and self-interested machine. Despite abundant evidence
of their importance, politicians today rarely appeal to traditional
social virtues like civic obligation, moral duty, self-respect and
common decency.
As a consequence,
governments have been reluctant to raise PSB license fees or increase
government grants to reflect inflation or increased operating costs.
Ironically, establishment apologists have attacked PSB as "elitist"
and, thus, unworthy of general public funding. This further evidences
the misanthropy of extreme libertarianism, reducing society to a
pool of individual consumers/contractors and removing the rationale
for any collective goods other than those favored by the conservative
establishment like military appropriations and road construction
for private vehicles.
Operating costs
in recent years have been impacted especially by the expense in
some countries of converting to digital broadcasting. PSBs subsidized
by government grants, like Canada and the U.S., have seen their
budgets slashed, leading to staff layoffs, greater centralization
of decision-making and more commercialism.
The response
has been to engage in more entrepreneurial ventures. This has had
its own cost. Increasing commercial dependence corrupts the mission
and the creative process of broadcasting. Program decisions are
made to attract potential funders or larger ratings rather than
to serve the public interest. Affluent audiences are privileged
over others. Program content is "dumbed down" to have
broader appeal. Moreover, commercials implicitly define the viewer/listener
as a commodity to be sold to advertisers rather than a citizen,
taxpayer, or subscriber to be served or audience member to be enlightened.
Where commercials are allowed to interrupt the programs, they destroy
the integrity of the program structure and the sensibility of the
viewing experience.
In the U.S.
five-second underwriting acknowledgements have expanded into
30-second commercials, including pitches on children's programs
for fast food and theme parks. There are more co-production deals
with commercial partners looking for lucrative back-ends. Such programs
typically are designed for export and, consequently, are less local
or even national in character.
PSB FUNDING
The authors
of the 1999 McKinsey Report, commissioned by the BBC, propose that
the most effective PSBs are those that manage to combine both share
and distinctiveness. That is, not only do they offer programs not
normally available on commercial channels, but they also attract
a large share of the audience. This enhances their impact on the
civic culture. Beyond that, it creates what the authors call a "virtuous
circle," whereby commercial broadcasters follow successful
programming examples set by public broadcasters. Thus, PSB actually
makes commercial broadcasting better.
The key to
the analysis is the source of funding. As the McKinsey Report
amply demonstrates, an appropriate funding model for PSB must
meet the following criteria: (1) substantial enough to create
a true competitor to commercial channels; (2) independent from
undue government or other influences; (3) predictable over the
medium term; (4) growing at a similar or faster pace than the
PSB's cost; and (5) sufficiently simple and equitable that it
can be administered with the minimum of political controversy.
The firm's
multinational comparison shows advertising income and government
grants to be quite volatile. In contrast, license fees have been
more stable and predictable. And the most effective PSBs, in terms
of achieving both distinctiveness and share, are the ARD and ZDF
in Germany, SVT in Sweden, and the BBC in the UK, all supported
by license fees.
Writing for
UNESCO, Toby Mendel notes that license fees do involve collection
costs, are a tough sell in countries with no previous history of
such and may exert some ratings pressure to justify the fee collection.
Nevertheless, research indicates that, wherever in place, license
fees are actively supported by the population. One survey indicates
that, despite the availability of two commercial channels, 98 percent
of households with color sets in Britain are willing to pay the
US$100 license fee and even three times that if necessary.
My organization,
Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, advocates that U.S.
PBS be restructured as a public trust, along the lines of the U.S.
Olympic Committee, Red Cross or Little League Baseball. We advocate
further that financing come from the commercial broadcasters who
pay no use fee for their lucrative monopoly over the public's airwaves.
A small tax on license use, license transfers and/or broadcast advertising
would provide all we think is needed for a significantly enhanced
PBS. A 1998 national poll found four out of five Americans favoring
such a proposal. We feel that a new Public Broadcasting Trust would
reduce the service's vulnerability to government and corporate influences
and free it to pursue its mission with journalistic and editorial
integrity.
It also must
be noted that the transition to digital transmission, in time, will
require all consumers to replace their TV sets with those that are
HD ready. In the U.S. alone, this will affect about 220 million
sets. This offers an opportunity, similar to that of the conversion
to color, to introduce a manufacturer's surcharge that could generate
a trust fund substantial enough to guarantee excellent PBS programming
for years to come.
Stable, adequate
and independent funding is only part of the solution, however. The
structure and practice of PSB also must embody the key principles
that justify its support. We need staff with vision; fewer accountants,
lawyers and bureaucrats and more artists, educators and journalists.
We need boards of directors with relevant expertise, from diverse
social and professional backgrounds, committed to a clearly defined
public mission, skillful in conducting the board's affairs, willing
to challenge government or corporate restrictions, responsive to
community input, and accountable to the appropriate government body.
Accountability must include both fiscal discipline and program policy.
Finally, there
must be well-designed efforts (e.g. advisory boards, surveys, focus
groups, public meetings, consultation with community leaders, etc.)
to ascertain what the community and general public knows and thinks
about PSB, its mission, structure, funding and programming. Do they
value this service and, if so, what are they willing to do to support
it? Equally importantly, what programs and services would the public
like to receive? This should go beyond a mere complaints process
to genuine ascertainment. In short, this would be public broadcasting
in the service of the public sphere, supporting and enhancing democracy
in mass society.
All of this
will require a social movement to challenge that of global capitalism
and its ideology of the marketplace as the ideal model for society.
It will require a frank and open discussion about what kind of a
society we want. It will have to restore respect for the concepts
of the public interest, collective goods, and good government as
we consider all those things that make for a good society and create
space for discussion as to how best to attain them. In societies
where there is a strong PSB already in place, that is where such
debate and discussion can, must and often does take place. Where
such space is limited or not available, citizens must use whatever
means possible to fight for such space and to engage others in such
discussion.
